“Ready Player One” Fun-filled Easter Eggs

The future is bleak in “Ready Player One,” based on Ernest Cline’s book of the same name. It takes us to Columbus, Ohio, in the year 2045, when the world has taken an ugly turn to be litter-ridden, unsafe and poverty-stricken.

At least that’s Cline’s vision. Steven Spielberg’s film version is a fast-paced visual extravaganza, engaging both gamers older than 13 and those of us who grew up in the ‘80s. (There are more pop culture references in this film than Storm Troopers on the Death Star. Reportedly, even the crew of the film tried to plant a few surprises for their director!)

The world’s population does everything to escape reality, including venturing into a gaming world called OASIS. Playing is costly, and the world is addicted. This addiction lines the pockets of OASIS, but creator Halliday (Mark Rylance) has died, giving gamers an opportunity to find all the keys to his kingdom in a virtual race against one another as they become Gunters, or Easter egg hunters. (For those not familiar, an “Easter egg” is an unexpected feature in a piece of computer software, usually added as a joke.)